Here's a fantastic way to play your MP3's. It's based on a PC and features infrared remote control and an LCD to display track titles.

By Peter Smith

IR Remote Receiver & Display Features

Works with most off-the-shelf universal remote controls

16 character, 2-line LCD with backlighting

Simple serial interface

In-built mini-terminal makes programming easy

Microcontroller (IC1) can be programmed in-circuit

No messy wiring

Over the coming months, we will describe how you can transform your PC into a veritable
jukebox, able to play any of your favourite MP3s at the press of a button. And
if you’re really serious about your MP3 music, you can even build a standalone
PC-based player without a monitor or keyboard.

We’ve received so many requests for MP3 projects that we just
couldn’t ignore them. This project includes the most-requested features but
omits some of the more radical – such as a Pentium III PC strapped in the car
boot with a custom power supply, up-front console and remote control!

What will the finished project do, exactly?

Essentially, we’ve taken one of the most popular freeware music
players on the Internet, Winamp, and added some software to allow it to be
controlled remotely.

Next, we designed a small board to do the remote bit. It
receives codes from any universal remote control and also provides an LCD
readout big enough for MP3 track data. Plug it into a free serial port on your
PC (or even build it right into your PC) and you’ve got a mean MP3 machine!

This month, we describe the hardware part of the project. Next
month, we’ll look at the Windows-based software, including Winamp and the
control software that makes it all work as an MP3 player.

Fig.1: an Atmel AT90S2313-4P microcontroller (IC1) does most of the work in the circuit. It outputs control signals to a MAX232 RS232 receiver/driver IC (IC4), which in turn driver the serial port of your PC. IC3 is the IR receiver chip.